Scenes from the bloom mountains

“The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there." – British playwright George Bernard Shaw, 1932.

Whether it’s God, inspiration, insight, relaxation or a cracker business idea you’re digging for, few better places exist for messing about in gardens than the inland rainforest micro-climate of mounts Wilson, Irvine and Tomah, located on the Bell’s Line of Road side of NSW’s Blue Mountains.

Far better known are the famous landmarks, such as Katoomba’s Three Sisters rock formation, the Grose Valley and Wentworth Falls, all located off the Great Western Highway.

Yet when it comes to rugged beauty, mounts Wilson, Irvine and Tomah easily hold their own against the better-known neighbouring sights, thanks to their sublime mix of rainforest and bush; ferns, tree ferns and soaring eucalypts.

At Mount Wilson, rich basalt soil and plenty of rain sustain aristocratic English-style gardens, while Mount Irvine is more inclined towards farming and Mount Tomah for its botanical bent.

Authors and garden enthusiasts Alison Halliday and Joanne Hambrett have finally given the three peaks the attention they deserve in their new book, A Passion for Place: Gardens of the Blue Mountains.

With photographs by specialist Blue Mountains photographer Ian Brown, the book covers 18 gardens in Mount Wilson, seven in Mount Tomah, and four in Mount Irvine.

Virtually all gardens featured in the book are open to the public for a small entrance fee at various times of the year. But before Halliday and Hambrett, no one had researched and brought their histories under the one cover.

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Arguably, the most intriguing and star-studded of the three mountains is Wilson, rising like a mini oasis of England, ringed by the vast Australian bush.

Nestled amid a world heritage national park, 126 kilometres west of Sydney’s CBD, Mount Wilson began – and continues today – as a summer retreat for Sydney’s well-heeled, including our only Nobel Prize winning author,
Patrick White
, who spent time in the 1920s and 30s at his family’s property, Withycombe. In 2002, Withycombe became the first property to break the $2 million mark at Mount Wilson when it sold for $2.05 million to investment banker Merrick Howe.

In his foreword to A Passion for Place, the former director of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, Peter Watts, describes this quirky wonderland, where electricity only came on in the 1960s and a manual phone exchange operated until 1986.

“At the centre of this charming place is an antipodean village of sorts – a disused schoolhouse and post office speak of another era, a carefully tended and modest war memorial, a village hall and a delightful country church," he writes.

“All are beautifully maintained. All surrounded by gardens, lush and green but not manicured. There is no shop. No commerce of any sort. It’s strange, unexpected and perfect. A village forest. One could be in deepest Hampshire or Massachusetts."

There might be nothing to buy – give or take the odd million-dollar home – but you can bet it took mega-bucks and a cast of eccentric entrepreneurial characters to deliver civilisation to the wilderness.

Smitten with the area’s natural beauty, a retired superintendent of the Australian Agricultural Co, Edward Christopher Merewether, was among the first to build in 1878. His grand two-storey sandstone home, Dennarque, is now owned by former Macquarie bank boss turned philanthropist Bill Moss. (In 2003, Moss paid $2.5 million for the estate.)

At one point, Dennarque was also owned by Flora Mann, whose family operated Sydney’s popular Petty’s Hotel. Much later her son, successful potter and artist Fred Mann, moved to Mount Wilson.

Moss and his family spend as much time as possible enjoying the property’s two hectares of garden and open paddock. Built on the mountain’s highest point, it contains exotic plants and natives: eucalypts; rhododendrons; azaleas; lilacs; dogwoods; several species of conifer and flowering cherry trees.

Another historic gem, Wynstay, features a Gothic stable complex, one of only two Turkish bathhouses in Australia and a neo-Georgian sandstone residence built in 1920 by a grandson of Wynstay’s original owner, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Owen Wynne.

Passed through three generations of the Valder family, Nooroo is one of the best-known gardens, not only for its beauty but also the public profile of the last Valder to own it – Peter, a retired botanist.

Just up the road, Sefton Hall was built by dapper Sydney draper and entrepreneur Henry Marcus Clark, creator of the department store chain Marcus Clark & Co. Clark purchased the property in 1909 and Sefton Hall was to stay in the family for about 80 years. In February 1911, Clark’s son Les wrote: “It is paradise up here. The new house where our home is to be is to be started in about a week. Father is in raptures over the place."

Clark came to an unfortunate end, dying on the kitchen table of his weekender in 1913 during an emergency operation.

Sand and gravel miner Tom Essington Breen purchased Breenhold in 1964. The 45 hectares of gardens and parkland is now owned by Breen’s elder son, Tom, and his wife, ABC presenter Rachael Kohn.

Like Halliday, who has spent weekends in Mount Wilson since her childhood, NSW Supreme Court Judge Michael Pembroke has been moved to print. In 2009, he published Trees of History and Romance: Essays From a Mount Wilson Garden, illustrated by botanical artist Libby Raines.

Pembroke and wife Gillian own Hawthorn, which once formed the apple orchard of the magnificent Yengo. Built just before the turn of the 19th century by grazier and industrialist Jesse Gregson, Yengo has belonged to Peter and Ann Pigott, of Uncle Pete’s Toys stores fame, since 1967.

When Gregson died in 1919 his obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald noted: “His home was at Mount Wilson, where he was one of the last of the original party of gentlemen who took up land."

Keen gardeners, the Pigotts left the original garden design, adding a few of their own touches, such as 16th century Spanish iron windows and wooden gates.

“We have only thought of ourselves as temporary guardians of the house and garden, as eventually we hope it will pass into the hands of another sympathetic owner," the Pigotts say.

Dignified and stately, with stone steps and generous wrap-around verandah, Withycombe was built by George Henry Cox, a grandson of colonial military officer, magistrate and builder, William Cox. A successful sheep breeder, Cox originally named his Mount Wilson property Beowang, but this was changed to Withycombe by Patrick White’s mother Ruth, who didn’t fancy the “dreary" Australian name.

As a schoolboy, White wrote in a letter: “I shall tell you about Mount Wilson. Our house has lovely oaks, elms, pines and cypresses."

If it was once the scene of elaborate weekend summer tea parties involving flapper-style dresses, posed photographs, iced drinks and an old grass tennis court, Withycombe has lost some of its genteel, old-world charm.

The present owners of the three hectare property, Barbara and Merrick Howes, have given it a modern facelift, including sealed tennis court and amphitheatre. Merrick Howes is co-founder of investment firm Shearwater Capital and former partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs JBWere.

Mt Wilson might not boast quite the same ambience these days, but its turn-of-the-century hill-station glamour is difficult to erase entirely.

“Against the display of wealth and money poured into the place, the new owners have come here with just as much passion as the original settlers 130 years ago," Halliday says.